Physicians' Coalition Asks Federal Court to Block Obama Healthcare: Doctors Claim Bill Would End 'Practice of Medicine as We Have Known It,' Assert President's Actions Are Unconstitutional

GREENBELT, Md., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a suit filed in Federal District Court, a group of nine prominent physicians from Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC have brought suit against President Barack Obama, claiming that his actions in forcing a healthcare bill through Congress have violated his constitutional authority.   The physicians are asking the Court to enjoin the President from any effort to "intimidate or coerce" any member of the Senate or House of Representatives to vote for a healthcare reform bill, or to expedite its passage.

The physicians' legal move comes as the Obama Administration is pushing Democratic members of the Senate and House to merge the bills approved by their respective chambers.   With neither version of the bill having attracted any Republican votes, and with no Democratic votes to spare, prospects for passage of a conference bill are small without further White House pressure on Democrat moderates.

In a complaint before U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte, a Clinton appointee, the physicians claim that the unconstitutional passage of the pending healthcare legislation would have a devastating impact on American medicine.  "I deplore the loss of the practice of medicine as we have known it," Dr. Richard P. Delaney, M.D., a Maryland family practice physician for over fifty years and one of the doctors bringing the action, asserted to the Court.  In addition, said Dr. Delaney in a filed affidavit, the unconstitutional bill would :

• "eliminate the sacred binding of the dedicated physician and the sick patient"
• "insure that doctors who can retire will do so quickly and remain retired"
• force patients into "an impersonal system" operated by "clock-watching civil servants," and to wait "months or even years" to receive treatment
• ensure fewer students will opt to go to medical school "merely to become a government functionary"
• deny "free citizens access to the legitimate medical care of their own choosing" and
• "force physicians to practice medicine deficiently."

The physicians' suit also adopts claims of unconstitutionality made by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee; law professor J. Kenneth Blackwell of the Family Research Council and Liberty University School of Law; and Kenneth A. Klukowski of the American Civil Rights Union:  

• Requiring individual Americans to purchase insurance, for which Congress has no constitutional authority;
• A violation of the "general welfare clause" of the Constitution through various backroom "deals" to secure Senators' votes with targeted benefits to their states; and
• A violation of federalism in mandating states to adopt benefit exchanges and other mechanisms, rendering states "little more than subdivisions of the federal government."

At the links, view in the physicians' original complaint in its entirely, with Dr. Delaney's affidavit.

Contact: Darren Spinck (202-669-4418/[email protected])

SOURCE Physicians Opposing Obama